On the one hand I’ve always thought that humanity would be best served by the absolution of fashion all together. If it were accepted that everyone, of every stripe, of every social standing and rank should simply wear a grey sweat-suit or a navy blue jumpsuit everyday, that would be fine with me. ⊕ It would save us all a lot of time and energy. ⊕ But on the other hand I understand that fashion is meant to be both a means of personal expression and a peacock feather of status. So why is it that the everyday uniform of modern man (and I am talking strictly about men here) has come to be the shapeless tan cotton pant, the artlessly cheap rubber-soled shoe, and the totally untailored (in most cases totally ill-fitting) woven shirt? ⊕ Is This the best we can muster? What has happened to us?

The assumption might be made that it’s all about comfort. That perhaps men of ages past would sigh longingly at our elastic-waisted pants, our stained, threadbare tees ⊕ our oversized polo shirts, our torn jeans, and think, “If only I could have such roomy pants to fart in! Such soft, tent-like garments to cover my huge belly!” But somehow I doubt it. I imagine rather they would do what they did best and snort derisively, looking down upon us as the slovenly rabble which we do, in fairness, appear to be. 

Not one of us thinks that silk tights and brocade cod-pieces ought to make a comeback, of that I am sure and in total agreement, but there has been middle ground, certainly, between looking like a shakespearean actor, in drag, playing Desdemona and the style-less khaki-wrapped lumps we’ve become. Most men, I’ll assume, don’t give a Saturday-morning-crap about fashion, just as I’ve professed myself, and would much rather simply blend in with the crowd, not being noticed one way or the other. To “care” is not to be masculine. I get this. To some degree I agree with this. ⊕

Since making the transition from self-consciously clad art-school hipster to ordinary dude I’ve been of the opinion that the best style is the one that invited no preconceptions, that says almost nothing specific about you whatsoever. ⊕ The lack of affected “stance” or statement in ones dress is the preferred statement in my estimation.

If we men do not care an ounce about fashion and want simply to not to stand out then it is the fault of the accepted standards which leads us to look like such sloppy imagination-less douchebags all the time. Though I don’t want to expend any unnecessary mental energy on clothing I am none the less an aesthetic person. Hence I sometimes wish that the fashion landscape I would blend myself into would be one with a bit more… style. Or at very least a bit more nuance. Ask yourself: how is it that even when men wore little more than a single long piece of fabric folded about them and sandals on their feet that they still managed to carry it with more style than we do today?

Is it simply that we, as an enlightened culture, no longer care about superficial things like appearances? HA HA HAA! No fucking way.

The arguments could be made that this state of slovenly disarray has its roots in modern notions of masculinity, in the pure economics of manufacturing and population size, in the rise of the middle class, or in plain ol’ laziness. It’s likely a mixture of those factors and other more subtle ones I haven’t even guessed at. But then it wasn’t until the late 50’s that the final casting-off of finery really began in America ⊕ and there were at least 4 decades in which modernity and higher standards of dress overlapped.

I often wonder why dress-codes of the 10’s - 40’s ever went out of favor for men. Just too much of a hassle? After all who among us have not watched a noirish movie populated with smartly dressed guys in tailored suits, with cufflinks, and a fedora and thought, “Man, I’d look like cool in that!” But of course, you can’t dress in a three piece suit with a felt hat and watch fob dangling from your vest today can you? The social decorum which necessitated such snappy dress no longer exists and so you would stand out rather than blend in. Point is we guys don’t really have much to choose from today. If we want to maintain that blessed state of virtual invisibility we must do so in the sloppy cotton rags once set aside for hobos and men who pushed manure carts. I guess, in the end, I just think compared to all that came before we’ve settled into something very… boring. Ah well, time marches on and the grass is always greener.

The monkeys and the crabs have never liked one another much. They worshipped different Gods and had little patience for what they saw as the other’s shortcomings.  Yet each possessed something the other wanted and so uneasy interaction was inevitable. The monkeys were poor and power hungry and so needed money which the crabs had plenty of. The crabs had a mighty thirst which could only be quenched with persimmon juice, and the monkeys owned most of the worlds persimmon trees.

Once upon a time in the “wretched” land of the monkeys the crabs, being rich and powerful and full of that mighty thirst, installed a monkey of their choosing in a big persimmon tree. They figured having a “puppet-monkey” of their very own, ruling over a tree, would yield all kinds of benefits in that unfriendly land, not the least of which would be access to the sweet sweet persimmons they so desperately craved. An ugly little crab shook hands with the ugly power-hungry “puppet-monkey” and all seemed just fine.

Over time the power hungry “puppet-monkey” began overstepping the bounds which his crab overlords had set for him. His land acquired a little wealth from persimmon sales and he became even more power-mad and viscous. He hurled poison persimmons at any monkey who challenged him and began taunting the very crabs who had put him in power. This went on and on and on, the monkey becoming ever more bold, the crabs becoming ever more angry. The crabs soon realized they’d picked a bad monkey to be their puppet and yearned to remove him from the persimmon tree.

Across the ocean in the rich and fertile land of the crabs a catastrophe befell the citizens which left them fearful and angry. Seeing their chance the king crabs blamed the catastrophe on their “puppet-monkey” and confused the none too smart citizens, creating a perfect excuse to shake him violently from his persimmon tree! The council of crabs, being almost wholly without chitin, agreed to the plan of the king-crabs.

Not wanting to seem as viscous as the monkey to the rest of the animal world, and fearful of having their true motivations become obvious to all, the king crabs gathered together a coalition of others with something to gain from the destruction of the “puppet-monkey.” They made promises of favor and showed all of the animal world it was not the crabs alone who wanted to be free of the “evil” monkey.

With their coalition in place the crabs travelled to the land of the monkeys and came down upon the “puppet-monkey” with all the considerable power their wealth could provide. There was shock and awe at the spectacle of flames leaping about the persimmon trees. The “puppet-monkey” proved easily defeated and the crabs exulted in accomplishing their mission.

But rich and powerful though they might have been the crabs and their coalition were not very smart! In their verve to shake the “puppet-monkey” from his tree they’d forgotten just how unfriendly the land of monkeys was, and just how much they’d always been despised. They somehow thought that mere words could erase thousands of years of distrust and animosity between monkeys and crabs. But of course they were wrong. Monkeys from all across the land came to fight the crabs and explosion after explosion would thereafter sound for years on end.

The crabs tried everything they could think of to thwart the monkeys, but as we’ve seen the crabs were not very smart, so for a long while all they could think of were sending in more crabs. Old crabs and young crabs and untrained crabs. Crabs of every kind. But no matter how many crabs they sent the explosions in the land of the persimmon trees just kept on coming. Both crabs and monkeys were blown to bits every single day. 

The crabs decided to set up super-secret prisons where they could send the problematic monkeys and torture them at will. They could beat the monkeys and demean them and piss on the books of their Gods without anyone ever knowing of their brutality. But the prisons didn’t help. Not being very smart the secret didn’t stay a secret for long and the persimmon fields exploded with a renewed vigor.

In the land of the crabs persimmons became even more expensive than they were to begin with and the citizens, after years of explosions, became tired of all the death. In truth they didn’t want to even hear anymore about the monkeys and their unfriendly land. The violence, though it occurred far away in the land of monkeys, had just as surely come to rule their lives at home as well. They couldn’t remember anymore why they’d allowed the king crabs to shake the “puppet-monkey” from his tree in the first place. Was he really worth it they wondered? Most of the crabs just wanted it all to be over.

But it was too late. The battle of the monkeys and the crabs had become an endless battle and no one could even imagine a way to stop it. It seemed no longer to be about persimmons and “puppet-monkeys.” The monkeys would fight forever to dispel the crabs they hated, and bewildered crabs would continue to die forever as well, because the king crabs, worried of being shaken from their own tree, would keep sending them. It was a sad time in the animal world, and still is, because the endless battle continues to this day.

The illustrations above were adapted from this version of the story.

To some the equation “knowledge + time = comedy” holds sway and is a joy. To others even present “facts” are fodder, begging to be torn down and placed on the pile of the disproved, in order to climb it and reach yet higher truths. Then there are those who stubbornly embrace dead facts as the cliched Italian widow might clutch her dead husbands casket as it’s lowered into the earth, wailing, and unable to let go. All might be united in a wan smile.

Today I offer you a few such castrated bits of ancient knowledge which once bravely served the subject of zoology. They are taken from Hrabanus Maurus’s 8th book of De rerum naturis (On the Nature of Things), written between 842 and 847, an encyclopedia in 22 books covering “the entire field of sacred and profane learning” as it was then understood. Scoff, giggle, embrace, or marvel at them. Judge for yourself their present function:

Asp
Latin name: Aspis.
Other names: Aspic, Aspide, Haemorrhois, Hypnalis, Ipnalis, Prester.
Facts: Blocks its ear with its tail so as not to hear the charmer.
Attributes: The asp is a serpent that avoids the enchantment of music by pressing one ear against the ground and plugging the other ear with its tail. In some versions the asp guards a tree that drips balm; to get the balm men must first put the asp to sleep by playing or singing to it. Another version holds that the asp has a precious stone called a carbuncle in its head, and the enchanter must say certain words to the asp to obtain the stone.

Hedgehog
Latin name: Herinacius.
Other names: Echinus, Ericio, Eriçon, Heriçon, Hericus, Herison.
Facts: A beast that carries away grapes on its sharp quills.
Attributes: When it is time for the harvest, the hedgehog goes into a vineyard, and climbing up a vine, shakes the grapes off onto the ground. It then rolls around on the fallen grapes to spear them with its quills, so it can carry the fruit home to feed its young.

Dog
Latin name: Canis.
Other names: Chien.
Facts: A young dog bound to a patient cures internal wounds.
Attributes: Dogs are unable to live without men. A dog that crosses a hyena’s shadow will lose its voice.  A dog will always return to its vomit. When a dog is swimming across a river while holding meat in its mouth, if it sees its own reflection it will drop the meat it is carrying while trying to get the meat it sees in the reflection.

Bear
Latin name: Ursus.
Facts: The cubs are born unformed, and must be licked into shape by the mother.
Attributes: Bears give birth in the winter. The bear cub is born as a shapeless and eyeless lump of flesh, which the mother bear shapes into its proper form by licking it (the origin of the expression “to lick into shape”). Bears eat honey, but can only safely eat the apples of the mandrake if they also eat ants. Bears fight bulls by holding their horns and attacking their sensitive noses. If injured, a bear can heal itself by touching the herb phlome or mullein.

Beaver
Latin name: Castor.
Other names: Bievre, Fiber.
Facts: Hunted for its testicles, it castrates itself to escape from the hunter.
Attributes: When the beaver sees that it cannot escape from the hunter, it bites off its testicles and throws them to the hunter, who then stops pursuing the beaver. If another hunter chases the beaver, it shows the hunter that it has already lost its testicles and so is spared.

Lynx
Latin name: Lynx.
Other names: Chama, Lincis.
Facts: The urine of the lynx hardens into a precious stone.
Attributes: Its urine hardens into a precious stone that is flame colored and similar to a carbuncle. The lynx covers its urine with sand so that humans cannot find the stone.

Pelican
Latin name: Pelicanus.
Other names: Honocrotalus.
Facts: A bird that revives its dead young with its own blood.
Attributes: As young pelicans grow, they begin to strike their parents in the face with their beaks. Though the pelican has great love for its young, it strikes back and kills them. After three days, the mother pierces her side or her breast and lets her blood fall on the dead birds, and thus revives them.

Bee
Latin name: Apes.
Facts: Bees are the smallest of birds, and are born from the bodies of oxen.
Attributes: Bees live in community, choose the most noble among them as king, have wars, and make honey. Their laws are based on custom, but the king does not enforce the law; rather the lawbreakers punish themselves by stinging themselves to death.

Ostrich
Latin name: Assida.
Other names: Asida, Assidam, Chamoi, Ostrice, Ostruche, Struthiocamelon, Struthione, Strutio.
Facts: A bird that can digest anything, even iron, but is careless of its eggs.
Attributes: It lays its eggs when it sees the star Virgilia (the Pleiades) rising.

Spider
Latin name: Aranea.
Other names: Araingne, Aringne.
Facts: The spider is an aerial worm that takes its nourishment from the air.
Attributes: The spider is industrious, never ceasing to build its net from a long thread drawn from its body. It is an aerial worm that takes its nourishment from the air. Its web is fragile. It is said that if a spider (or a snake) tastes the saliva of a fasting man, it dies.

Salamander
Latin name: Salamandra.
Other names: Silion, Stellio, Sylio.
Facts: Salamanders are so cold they can extinguish any fire.
Attributes: The salamander is a cold animal. It can live unharmed in a fire, and its coldness will extinguish the hottest flames. If it enters hot water, the water will become cold. From the salamander comes a material that is unlike any other cloth; when it becomes dirty, it must be thrown into a fire, which will consume the dirt without harming the cloth. This cloth is made in the deserts of India, and is worn by important people. The salamander’s poison is very strong, and can kill many at once. If it climbs an apple tree, the apples become poisonous; if it enters a well, the water becomes deadly.

Hyena
Latin name: Hyaena.
Other names: Hiena, Hienne, Hyene, Iena, Luvecerviere, Yena.
Facts: A beast that eats human corpses and changes sex.
Attributes: Hyenas can change their sex; sometimes they are male, other times female. They live near tombs and eat the dead bodies they find there. There is a stone in the hyena’s eye (some say in the stomach of its young) that will give a person the ability to predict the future if the stone is placed under the person’s tongue. Hyena’s will circle a house at night, calling out words with the voice of a man; anyone who is deceived and goes out to investigate is eaten.


I must say that coming upon such cast-aside facts as these makes me feel slightly sad, because, after all, how wonderful would it be if our world was this magically and irrationally ordered? Today we create elaborate fantasies to entertain ourselves, the endless films, shows, novels, and games filling the hole that was once occupied by a wonder at the natural world; fictitious horrors flicker across screens rather than the demons and monsters who once lurked in the blackest area of every shadow.

In these terms I can understand the compunction to believe in Gods. What notion could be simultaneously more romantic, terrifying, and comforting? Faith is necessitated by mystery is it not? Makes it ironic that in stubbornly embracing a fantasy, and indeed actively propagating it and its attendant strict laws and codes, believers also effectively homogenate the world, stripping both culture of its magic, and in seeking to explain away all of creation, the natural world of its true majestic machinations. But of course understanding the compunction is far from being sympathetic to it. This is the year 2006 after all, not 842! And whatever else their function, abandoned notions make possible new notions, and their wake opens paths into larger mysteries.

I say when a “fact” has become impotent, spare it the viagra of faith, and let it degrade gracefully, performing on the vaudeville circuit of old ideas, until it is finally forgotten.

As stated pervious all images are adapted from the online presentation of Hrabanus Maurus’ De rerum naturis, text from the same. (For more on Maurus’ other works see Cryptic-Rabanus at Bibliodyssey.)

Hope you enjoyed.

Now with the original test you send it back via mail and it is reviewed, scored, and evaluated by their staff of art professionals, who point out your strength as well as areas for improvement, and offer an otherwise honest assessment of your potential as an artist. I assure you that is not the case here. Honest assessments are sooo 20th century! After you’ve taken the Nonist Instruction School Art Test you can ball it up, shred it, and toss it in the dumpster. Today there are no objective standards and Art is subjective to the calcium-deficient osteopathic bone.

So there you have it! You passed. You’re well on your way! Congratulations.

The real story, just below the surface, seems to be summed up as follows: “This couldn’t have happened at a better time for the Bush Administration.” More than one talking head has oozed this sentiment. How disgusting is that? Yeah, dropping two 500 lb bombs to kill a single terrorist, one whose “importance” was in large part manufactured by our own errors in Iraq, is so minor an accomplishment it’s very nearly symbolic, and in as much the effect could be political only. Perhaps it will bounce Bush’s poll numbers a half a percentage point? The administration were so thrilled at this prospect evidently that they took the time to artfully matte and frame the death photo in a very tasteful gilt frame. How nice.

About the only effect I can imagine this having is more self-congratulatory bluster from the administration and, of course, retaliatory violence. But then The bluster is there with or without even minor accomplishments, (these are people who actually congratulate and award medals for failure) and the violence would have happened regardless. So as I said before “...AND?”